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A homage to the British miners
Dave Feikert
Dave Feikert was the NUM Research Office. This article appeared in the New Zealand newspaper, the Wanganui Chronicle, 2 March 2009
DATELINE: 10/3/09
Today I would like to pay homage to Britain’s miners. It is 25 years on from the start of their epic struggle to defend their communities. Their message was that neo-liberal economic policies, operated as state dictat, would have a disastrous outcome for their country. They were so right.Their year-long strike in 1984-85 was against mine closures, to save their communities, their livelihoods and Britain’s energy supply. In this they failed, but in the desperate defence of their industry they showed the true value of human solidarity, of a kind needed to overcome the present global crisis.
They, their children and now their grand children have suffered the horrendous consequences of their defeat. Unemployment remains very high in their wrecked communities as over 300,000 jobs in the coal industry alone were killed off. Their children and their grand children are targeted by drug pushers. A few are joining gangs. Drug addiction and alcoholism are higher than elsewhere. Sounds familiar?
Be in no doubt who these men were. Former Tory Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan summed it up when he said in 1984, in a pointed message to Mrs. Thatcher, ‘the miners are the best men in the world – they defeated the Kaiser and they defeated Hitler’. They were in the front lines and dug the tunnels in the dangerous mud of Flanders and northern France. Kiwis know they were not alone.
I had the great privilege of advising their union for 10 years until 1993, on health and safety and technology. Throughout, they remained cheerful, and often incredibly funny. They would ring up the National Office and ask, ‘Is that the Marie Celeste?’ after the name of the ship found sailing around the world with no crew. As the mines closed, staff members were made redundant, too. In the end, few were left.
The defeat of the miners represented the virtual death of industrial Britain. Industry is now one third of what it was in 1979. North Sea oil and gas is running out fast, all but a handful of mines are now shut, never to be revived. The UK will be importing all of its fossil fuel by 2020, with huge balance of payments costs.
If someone asked me, 'How would you fix Britain?' I would have to say - go back to 1983 and reach an industrial modernisation and technology agreement with the miners and present it as a model for the rejuvenation of British industry. This was on the negotiating table in 1983 but Mrs. Thatcher refused to discuss it. In the 1980s the UK had the most technologically developed coal industry in the world, after Prime Minister Harold Wilson set up Plan for Coal, out of the 1973/74 oil shock. It could have led the world.
Never has any community of working people contributed so much to their country and yet been so badly treated. The miners powered the industrial revolution. At the peak of the coal industry in 1913 there were 1.1 million miners or one in 10 of the work force.
They dared to oppose Thatcherism. In the US this was Reganism and here it was Rogernomics. The deregulation they all promoted has brought the global economy to its knees. The removal of banking controls led to crazy new financial instruments, the housing bubbles and soaring, toxic debt. This blew up in September last year.
In repairing all this damage, we can take inspiration from the values seen daily in Britain’s mining villages during 1984-85, of care and support, of human solidarity at its best.
Last modified: Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
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DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
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Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
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Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
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Previous stories
Miscellany
The strike recorded
Optimistic AGM
Obituary: Jimmy Barnes
World Press Freedom Day 2008
Farewell to Geoff
Dispatches footage will be given to police
Post Office to First Amendment: Drop Dead 5
Where now for childrens TV?
Sri Lanka and the CPBF
AGM calls for new direction for the CPBF
Report of Work 2005
Give money to Greg Palast
The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?
The war on Palestine's orphans
Interpal accuses Panorama of lack of balance
Free Press index launched
Without Comment
How the US media destroy democracy
John Pilger
It’s Not Cricket
Without Comment
Without Comment
Digital TV and state abuse of power
Beyond TV: everything for the video activist
Without Comment
In the USA today
Spies like us....
Sir Frank Rogers: Obituary
Not so public launch
Indymedia seizure explained - in part
